Tim Frin

studying how modern software distributes. analyzing B2B content, testing it on my own.

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

In 2018, Outreach & Salesloft raised hundreds of millions to own cold email. Lemlist launched with $1k on dynamic images.

Now Heyreach (multi-sender) and Gojiberry (intent) run the same playbook.

Categories are never saturated. Incumbents just get slow and leave wedges open.

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@NamanyayG Pump !

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

i talk to a lot of hungry founders who want to build a new software company

what strikes me is how lost they are about what to build

the same question keeps coming up: will claude or a competitor eat this idea in the next 6 months?

do you think software entrepreneurship still has a future? where do you see real, lasting opportunities?

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@LouiseDSadeleer @TellaHQ Would be super useful!

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@timscheuer Youre doing amazing work Tim, keep going

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@mattragland how often does the brand actually reach out after the free mention? curious if it's more like 1 in 3 or 1 in 30

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@denk_tweets @beehiiv Thanks for replying !

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

i listed how 20 companies got their first foothold. 14 are at 10m+ in revenue, the fastest in 2 years

gamma, recall[.]ai, riverside, heygen, instantly and a few others

i wanted to know what the first wedge actually was, before any growth strategy

i tagged each company by the type of wedge. a company can have two. 10 types came out of it, 28 tags in total:

 1.⁠ ⁠new ai tech: 8
 2.⁠ ⁠simplicity: 5
 3.⁠ ⁠technical quality: 4
 4.⁠ ⁠price: 2
 5.⁠ ⁠specialization: 2
 6.⁠ ⁠missing features: 2
 7.⁠ ⁠targeting by buying signal: 2
 8.⁠ ⁠targeting the person, not the company: 1
 9.⁠ ⁠speed: 1
10.⁠ ⁠personalization: 1

the 3 that come back most:

 1.⁠ ⁠new ai tech
gamma. formatting slides took hours, so the product did it for you.

 2.⁠ ⁠simplicity
recall[.]ai. every software vendor was building its own meeting bot, a heavy job. they sold it as one api.

 3.⁠ ⁠technical quality
riverside. zoom and google meet compressed the stream, riverside recorded in high resolution.

which of the 3 would you bet on if you were starting today?

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@jayclouse awkward part is a lot of people used ai to automate exactly the deep concentrated effort part that's now supposed to be the moat

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

for 15 years every product team got the same advice

talk to your users before you build

it made sense when building took months and burned real money

now you can ship in a weekend

i'm running a full discovery for my own project right now and i keep asking myself

should i just build instead?

where i've landed:

interviews tell you what people say
shipping tells you what people do

when building gets cheap, building IS the discovery

you still talk to users

you just do it with something live in front of them

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@alexabelonix True ahah

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

i read AI startup landing pages 10 times before i understand what they do

and that's the paradox of this wave

building software has never been easier

being understood has never been harder

when anyone can ship in a weekend, the companies that win are the ones people get in 5 seconds

clarity is the new moat

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@ludogranger I’d love to see concrete examples !

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

everyone on here says the same thing: build software for unsexy markets.

two problems with that advice.

first, i rarely see concrete examples. which unsexy market, which company, what outcome?

second, what i see on the ground in europe: companies in those markets are curious about ai. but curious is not ready.

adopting ai-native tools means changing how people actually work. change management is brutal. most of these companies are waiting for one thing: concrete roi proof from big players before they move.

so here's my honest question:

are "unsexy" markets actually ready to buy ai-native tools, or are we building for buyers who don't exist yet?

curious if anyone here sells into these markets. what's the real adoption story?

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@hectorserrranoo the dorm room years never make it into the case studies. how far in were you before one actually landed?

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@denk_tweets the best time to own your audience was 2018. the second best time is right after the next algorithm update ruins your week

[Mehdi Djabri @mehdidjabri]

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[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

the best playbook for building a company used to be simple: raise millions, sell a 10 year vision, get everyone on board. investors, teams, customers.

that playbook is dying.

with AI moving this fast, who can honestly define a 10year vision?

markets shift monthly
code costs nothing
barriers to entry are at historic lows

what i'm seeing instead: small squads of very strong people launching companies on 2-3 year horizons.

founders treating each company almost like a feature: bootstrap it, make it profitable, take dividends, reinvest in the next one.

if the first product doesn't take, the same squad ships the next one fast.

a one squad company.

less glory, more cash.
less narrative, more options.

in a market nobody can predict, staying small, profitable and fast might be the least risky way to build.

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

200 guests into my podcast, one rule i've never broken: i never accept guests placed by agencies.

it's never ended well.

one time an agency pitched their VP product.

5 minutes into the intro call, i could tell she didn't want to be there.

stressed, unprepared and clearly pushed into it.

that episode would have been terrible. for her and for my listeners.

here's what most companies get wrong about founder-led content:

it's not about putting employees on podcasts for visibility.

it's a culture of giving value before you ever expect to receive it.

companies pushing their people onto podcasts just for exposure have it backwards. listeners feel it instantly.

my guest criteria, after 200 episodes:

1. people who share value easily and say interesting things

2. people with real opinions, who dare to say them out loud

3. people who ask questions and aren't afraid to be wrong in public

that's it.

no PR filter.
no agency pitch.

the best thought leadership doesn't look like a strategy.

it looks like generosity.

[Tim Frin @Timfrn]

@manxlab Ahah. I really don’t understand why